Resistance exercise techniques typically involve the use of weight machines or free weights. Walking through a local gym or fitness club reveals racks of free weights and numerous other space-hogging benches and weight machines, many designed to exercise a single muscle group. For most people, the sheer bulk of the equipment forecloses any possibility of a comprehensive home fitness center comprised of traditional equipment. In addition, a comprehensive set of traditional resistance fitness equipment may be prohibitively expensive. Due to these space and cost restraints, individuals are faced with the decision of purchasing a gym membership and commuting to the gym or buying space-saving but less comprehensive “home gym” equipment.
Individuals seeking to maintain a regular regimen of resistance exercise face additional challenges when traveling for business or pleasure. During travel, one often finds that fitness centers in hotels have little to no resistance equipment or that the campground or similar location is completely lacking any sort of fitness equipment at all. Traditional resistance equipment is just not mobile, and even more compact “home gyms” are too bulky to conveniently take on trips.
In addition to cost and portability issues, traditional free weights have limitations. Their mode of operation relies on the law of gravity and therefore they only supply a downward force. Moreover, safely working with free weights often requires a second person, a “spotter,” which puts limitations on where and how often the equipment may be used.
Also, traditional exercise equipment such as free weights and weight machines generally operate to isolate and fatigue muscles through movement in a single plane. This equipment, therefore, provides limited range of motion. A growing trend in fitness is towards functional training, which enhances normal body movements instead of isolating one muscle at a time. Traditional exercise equipment does not provide this level of freedom.
Inelastic straps have been used to enhance traditional exercise equipment to vary the angles at which a user encounters resistance. Gravity still provides the resistance, but the inelastic straps redirect the resistance force. The effectiveness of these devices depends on the user being able to perform a wide variety of exercises according to their strength, weight, height, or physical limitations. Resistance exercise devices having inelastic straps, however, often restrict the dynamic motion of the individual's arms, legs, torso, or the movement between the individual and the attachment anchor point. Inelastic exercise devices can be compact and portable, but have limited usefulness as a result of their resistance characteristics, which, like traditional exercise equipment, still depend on gravity to create the resistance. This limits the number of potential exercises that the user can accomplish.
Also, often different users may not be able to effectively use the same inelastic strap device for the same exercise due to differences in the users' height, weight, or strength. Different users may need to readjust the device or use a different device to create the proper vector angles necessary to provide sufficient resistance according to the user's physical characteristics.
Another limitation of an inelastic resistance device is that the anchoring point which is often a door must be sturdy enough to support at least the user's entire body weight. Glass door anchor points, for example, would be insufficiently strong for the user to perform inelastic resistance strap exercises without causing damage. Inelastic resistance devices may also be limited in that they often must be anchored in an above down fashion so that the user's weight may effectively become the resistance via gravity. Therefore, inelastic devices do not provide a diverse enough array of exercises.
Inelastic resistance devices also do not allow for total body muscle engagement when performing different exercises which includes non-consistent abdominal core engagement. Transitioning from an open chain (double hand/feet) exercise to a closed chain (single hand/foot) exercise takes a tedious rearrangement of an inelastic resistance strap that can sometime prove to be unsafe for the user if not arranged properly.
Another form of resistance exercise device involves an elastic resistance band that can be attached to a fixed location such as a door. While these devices may overcome some of the limitations of the inelastic devices previously discussed, they may have some limitations of their own. Some of these devices work properly only in combination with various separate attachments such as handles, foot slings, and even separate door and universal anchor attachments. These attachments require changes to the device's configuration that are cumbersome and that decrease the ease of use, effectiveness and portability of these products.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for affordable, compact and portable resistance training equipment and techniques that provide the ability to perform a comprehensive workout regimen at home or while traveling. These devices would eliminate the need for a traditional gym and the inherent problems with using a traditional gym such as inaccessibility, wasted travel time, and expense. Furthermore, there is a need for resistance training equipment that facilitates multi-planar and functional training exercises in addition to traditional isolation-based exercises.
There is also a need for a resistance exercise device that provides uniform resistance with no additional attachments. Such a device would provide greater of ease of use while allowing for a vast array of stances and exercises that provide resistance and proper, consistent, and effective muscle engagement. In addition, there is a need to provide such a device that is also easily portable and capable of easily being anchored to various anchoring locations for exercising.